A little quiver shook her. Would he really be her friend? Yet, after all, why not? But like a dream there rose before her the image of Cristiane le Marchant, young, lovely, and rich; behind that the vision of Marcus Wray, his thick red lips mocking her in her fancy. What could either of them have to do with Miles Cylmer? Yet she was cold with fright, standing there in the winter sun, lest Cristiane le Marchant might have more of Cylmer’s heart than she knew, and lest Marcus Wray might find her hiding-place with his secret that could make her forswear the sight of Cylmer’s face for very terror. She drew a sharp breath. Cylmer’s face grew blank as he looked at her. “You won’t! You can’t forgive me?” he said gently. “Very well.” Ismay put her hand in his, but with the gesture of a woman, not a girl. “Be my friend, then!” she said slowly. “Promise me that you will believe in me, and trust me. No one ever did that.” “I will trust you through anything,” he said, puzzled. “It is a bargain; you are to forgive me, and I am to be your friend for always.” He clasped her hand hard, as if it were the hand of a comrade, and the blood came red to her cheek. “Won’t you tell who you are?” he asked, smiling at the fancy that kept her nameless, as he released her hand. “Don’t look so startled, it’s only the station bus!” For there was a sound of wheels on the road behind him. It was a long instant before she answered, and when she spoke she looked no longer the same girl. “I am no one--of any importance,” she said, with a languid nod; then she turned away and was gone without even a good-by. Cylmer was forced to go through the hedge, outside of which his horse was fretting and plunging with impatience. “I’d swear she never kissed a man before,” he mused as he mounted. “And she’s right, I can’t forget it. I wonder who she’s staying with.” Not for a moment connecting her with the strange woman at Marchant’s Hold. Yet the girl in his thoughts had at that moment forgotten all about him. She was running swiftly toward Marchant’s Hold, with a deadly terror at her heart. It was senseless, unreasonable, yet the glimpse she had had through the hedge of the occupant of the station bus was so like a glimpse of Marcus Wray that she had turned sick. It was like waking from a dream of warmth and happiness, to find death in the house. Yet it could not be that Wray had found them. “He would never think of us in a respectable house,” she thought, as she hurried on. “But if he did, we have no more diamonds; we can’t buy him off any more.” She reached an open field, below her in the level valley rose the strong towers of Marchant’s Hold, with the flag of England’s glory flying on the highest of them. As she looked the flag went suddenly down to half-mast. Some one, a Le Marchant born, must be lying dead!